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Monday, December 2, 2013

Market Summary -- 2nd Dec 13

FTSE STI closed 3,188.76, up 12.41 points or +0.39% with a total volume of 1.48b and a total value of S$686M. Total number of advance vs decline was 169 vs 226. Of the 30 component index stocks, 18 closed positive, 2 unchanged and 10 in the red. The top 5 gainer component stocks were :-

US markets reversed gain and closed mixed last Friday. Asian bourses were also mixed for the day with Nikkei -0.04%, SSE -0.59% and HSI +0.66%. STI recovered some ground from last Friday loss with a +0.39% closing in thin volume and value day. 18 of the 30 index stocks posted gain.

China released its official PMI data for November over the weekend coming in at 51.4 better than expected. The HSBC flash PMI released this morning also better than last week as China manufacturing activities gain traction. However, SSE was down for the day due to the drag from China Government in its latest move to reform the IPO market. Rest of the Asia bourses were divided between good set of economic data from China and sentiment.

STI managed to recover some ground from last Friday loss but trading was pretty much muted as majority of the stocks were still moving in narrow range given the lack of interest. With most of the fund managers probably already closed their portfolio and head for holiday, retail investors also shun away from punting in penny stocks, can expect rest of the month to be muted too. What investors should look out for will be those "shock" events (like next month US debt ceiling saga again) in the next few months for the bargain opportunity and never give the S-Reits a miss despite all the negative from analysts; they seldom get it correct anyway.